


The Things We See As Children Follow Us All The Way Home

by voidofthestars



Series: friends in the face of nightmares [3]
Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Best Friends, Flashbacks, Gen, Hey did yall kno baron got me fucked up?, Hurt/Comfort, Psychological Trauma, Spoilers, Trauma, also i refuse to believe that got over that trauma so quickly, like fuck no way thays horrifying, turns out when one of ur friends tries to kill you that shit stays w u
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-25 06:02:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21351424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voidofthestars/pseuds/voidofthestars
Summary: -He's trying to do that. Instead he's staring down the papers and books spread all across the space, eyes going slightly blurry watching the words swimming right off the page, floating away into the room and out the window. His head is empty save for that horrifying voice.-Or; a brief moment in the burrows of the van.
Relationships: Adaine Abernant & Riz Gukgak
Series: friends in the face of nightmares [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1564951
Comments: 6
Kudos: 113





	The Things We See As Children Follow Us All The Way Home

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place middle of the newest episode from twitch so minor barely noticeable spoilers
> 
> Also title subject to change if anyone wants to give suggestions

They're supposed to be doing research. That was the whole reason he and Adaine had crammed themselves into the same little magical burrow/den Tracker's magic wolf had made. He knows that. He's  trying  to do that. Instead he's staring down the papers and books spread all across the space, eyes going slightly blurry watching the words swimming right off the page, floating away into the room and out the window. His head is empty save for that horrifying voice.

  


_"It is I, Baron, your roëmænce partnær from the Baronese. Riz, why will you not look at me? Am I not the partnær you so eagerly told your friends all about? Is there something wrong? Something wrong with me? Or maybe perhaps, something wrong with you?" The nightmare beings head snapped to the side with a loud and unsettling crack, and the weird stiff grin which had been etched on its face split open and grew wider in a terrible rictus parody. "Oh no, there is something particularly wrong with you isn't there. It was your own fault that they had to come and get you. They had to rescue you, because you are too weak and pathetic to do it yourself."_

  


Distantly, he's aware of his breathing changing, picking up speed, and Adaine calling his name, like hearing his name while underwater being called from the surface. But he feels trapped, like anchors strapped to his ankles, dragging him deeper, calling his name in that spine numbing voice. 

  


Suddenly a heavy weight drops onto his head with a weird like squashing sensation. He gasps as he's knocked out of that awful place trapped in his own head, and fumbles for whatever still sits squished on his head.

  


He pulls down an incredibly large round green and white frog and turns it to look it in the eyes. Its ribbited loudly at and almost smiled. The collar around it read Emotional Support Familiar, with a tag naming him as Boggy The Froggy.

  


"Riz? Are you alright now?" Adaine's voice cuts through the confusion and he turns to look at her. She's ringing her hands together, intermittently making aborted motions towards him like she wants to touch him or hug him.

  


The pity in her eyes makes him distinctly feel like vomiting so he looks back at the frog. 

  


Giving it a slight squeeze just to watch it's weird cartoonish eyes bugle, he clears his throat a couple times. "When did you get a familiar?" 

  


"Oh uh, earlier this week. Actually the night you and Fig…." She trails off, letting her hands go only to reach up and tug at her hair. 

  


Silence, broken only by the faint chatting in the other room and by Boggy's soft ribbing, filled the room for a moment.

  


"Oh and he's not just my familiar, he's legally my ESF, emotional support familiar. Do you want to hear his full name?"

  


A snort of fake laughter; "Yeah of course."

  


Adaine smiles and eagerly proclaims "Bogariel Frogariel!" 

  


As she had hoped, the silly name managed to coax an actual laugh out of Riz, one that almost seemed to startle himself. 

  


"Fabian's going to have to stop calling me the Ball because let's be honest, Boggy here is literally a perfectly spherical ball." Riz grinned down at the frog in his hands, who loudly ribbited and compressed his eyes at the goblin, almost in a winking motion.

  


"Just a perfect ball, full of Loving My Friends! and Happy To Be Here, Gang! He's helped me out of a few panic attacks in the last couple days." 

  


Adaine seemed content to let Riz play with Boggy for a few minutes while she looked for the right words.

  


"Riz," Adaine started only for him to cut her off.

  


"Please Adaine, do not ask me what you are about to ask me." Riz's quiet voice cuts through hers. "What happened to me in that mirror is going to stay in that mirror and deep in my repressed memories to never be talked about again, okay?"

  


"Riz that's not healthy! This was a serious thing, I thought Fig was going to kill you! No one knew what happened!" She swipes an arm across her eyes, dashing away the beginnings of tears. "We went to your office Riz, and what we found was horrifying. That nightmare  _thing _ looked so close to you and when we first found it we thought it was you! We thought it had possessed you! I thought I was going to have to kill my best friend." She buried her face in her hands as her shoulders started to shake slightly.

  


Boggy gave Riz a Very Disapproving Look, ribbited, and hopped from his hands over into Adaine's lap to settle down there, making soft contented noises every now and then.

  


Riz bit at his lip and reached out and gently laid a hand on her shoulder. "Adaine...I…." A deep sigh escapes him, "It's still too close Adaine, it's not like I don't want to tell you. It's that I'm still processing everything myself. Blinking is terrifying because I keep seeing Baron like it's etched into the back of my eyelids, or I see Fig, standing over me holding that fucking knife and spirals in her eyes. I...I don't think I'll be going to sleep any time soon honestly." He gave a wiry laugh there at the end, patting her softly. 

  


"Riz you know you can always talk to any of us about this, right? We're your friends till the end, regardless of what happens. Bad Kids and all that. Don't think I haven't noticed you haven't even looked at Fig since the hotel, let alone spoken to her." Adaine looked up at him with a slight glare, and reached one hand up to grab his, the other pressing up and down on Boggy's back.

  


"In my defense it has literally been maybe a full 24 hours, there hasn't been a whole lot of time to sit down and hash out all the newly acquired trauma." He awkwardly laughs, free hand coming up to tug at an ear, while the other turned to grip hers tightly. 

  


For a while they sat there, in a comfortable silence, broken only by the occasional ribbits and other odd noises from Boggy.

  


Riz cleared his throat. "Hey, Adaine?"

  


"Yes Riz?"

  


"Would you mind staying in here for tonight? I know you probably have your own room but…"

  


A faint grin. "Yeah of course Riz. Do you want to listen to that podcast for a while?"

  


"Oh hell yeah! Do you think if we listen to enough of the magic ones I could just like, learn magic?" 

  


Adaine laughed, finally letting go of his hand and straightening up (well as best as she could in the small area) "Oh, you mean like the way you thought you could just dispel that curse on Fig by just yelling Dispel Magic?"

  


"Hey!! Listen! It could have worked! Maybe anyway!" Riz laughed as well, lightly shoulder checking her as he scurried to shove the books and papers into a corner for them to look at later, you know after a few episodes of their favorite podcast that Adaine had pre downloaded onto her crystal. They weren't stopping research, just you know taking a small mental health break. It'll be fine, they'll get back to it soon enough. 

  


\---

  


In the morning, Cathilda would crawl her way into the den and stop and coo at the sight of them, half sprawled over each other like "wee little tuckered out puppies". Adaine sprawled across the floor, head cocked to the side with one arm thrown over her face and Riz, one hand latched around her wrist, tail wrapped loosely around his own middle with enough slack to lay partially across her legs, curled in a small ball around Boggy who sat quite happily in the pile of children. 

  


Cathilda wouldn't be able to help herself, and would take a picture, to send back to both Sklonda and Jawbone, before backing quietly out to give them a few more minutes of peace before the rest of their inevitable crazy adventures.

**Author's Note:**

> I'll play around with the formatting later it's late n I've got a hell of a head ache rip
> 
> Follow me on tumblr at voidofthestars@tumblr.com ;3c


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